Page:Dictionary of National Biography volume 03.djvu/357

Barwick BARWICK, JOHN (fl. 1340), theologian, took his name from Berwick, where he appears to have been born or brought up. From Berwick he seems to have removed to the Franciscan schools at Oxford, at which university he became a doctor of theology, and is enumerated as the twenty-second reader of divinity belonging to that order in the early years of the fourteenth century. He appears to have studied at Paris likewise; for we are told by Dempster and Bale that he also went by the name of Breulanlius; and this Breulanlius is mentioned towards the end of the fifteenth century by the all-accomplished Pico della Mirandula as resisting Roger Bacon and other philosophers, who seem to have advocated the study of astrology at the university of Paris. Leland also calls him the contemporary of William of Ockham, of whose doctrines, he adds, Barwick was a strenuous adherent. Bale states that he flourished about 1340; and he appears to have read divinity lectures at Oxford about the beginning of the fourteenth century. But this seems assigning rather a late date to an opponent of Roger Bacon. He was buried at Stamford.

His chief works were a commentary on Peter Lombard, and the treatise entitled ‘Super Astrologorum Prognosticis,’ which Bale praises highly. His other writings were on the ordinary mediæval scholastic subjects. Dempster gives a full list.

 BARWICK, JOHN (1612–1664), dean of St. Paul's, was born at Wetherslack, in Westmoreland. His parents probably belonged to that yeoman class which is so numerous in the north, for they are described as 'honest people who had a small estate.' John was the third of five sons, and he and his brother Peter [q. v.] were selected by their parents as the two who were to be ' bred scholars.' After having spent a little time unsatisfactorily at two or three small grammar schools in the neighbourhood of his home he was sent to Sedbergh school, in Yorkshire, where he made great progress in his studies. In 1631 he proceeded to St. John's College, Cambridge, where he won so high a reputation that, either before or immediately after taking his B.A. degree (1635), he was deputed by the college to represent its interests in a dispute respecting the election of a new master. Boy though he was, he discharged his important trust most successfully, and was presently elected fellow of the college.

He received holy orders, and in 1638 took his M.A. degree. But he was not destined to continue long in the peaceable enjoyment of his fellowship. The civil war broke out, and in 1642 the royalists at Cambridge raised a sum of money for the king, and arranged to transmit it to him, together with some college plate. The parliament received information of what was going on, and sent Cromwell with a party of foot to a place called Lower Hedges, between Cambridge and Huntingdon, for the purpose of cutting off the supplies. This fact becoming known, a party of horse was formed, of which Barwick was one, who conveyed the treasure through byroads to Nottingham, where the king had set up his standard. The parliament were so provoked at being out-manoeuvred that they sent Cromwell with a body of troops, who committed great ravages in the university. This called forth two strong remonstrances, in both of which Barwick took a prominent part. The first was entitled 'Certain Disquisitions representing to the Conscience the Unlawfulness of the Solemn League and Covenant,' the first edition of which was immediately seized and burned, so that the earliest edition extant is the second, published in 1644. The second and more famous remonstrance was that entitled 'Querela Cantabrigiensis,' a pamphlet of about thirty pages, which is largely quoted in Walker's' Sufferings of the Clergy.' Barwick, who was well known to have been a chief author of these pieces, was forced to leave Cambridge, and of course lost his fellowship. He found a firm patron in Bishop Morton, who made him his chaplain, and gave him the fourth stall at Durham Cathedral and the rectories of Houghtonle-Spring and Walsingham ; these, however, were but nominal preferments, for the poor bishop was deprived of all substantial patronage. Barwick settled in Loudon, and threw himself heart and soul into the king's cause. He carried on a private correspondence between London and Oxford, which was then the king's head-quarters; he communicated to the king all the designs and attempts of the rebels, and conveyed his majesty's orders to the friends of the royal cause. In order that he might carry on these negotiations with greater safety, he became an inmate of Durham House, the London residence of his patron, the Bishop of Durham. This answered a double purpose. Durham House was so spacious a mansion that he could the more easily hide in it, if necessary, the ciphers relating to the king's business : and he was able, if asked what he was doing in London, to reply that he was acting as chaplain to Bishop Morton. He had, moreover, the 